Wu Han and the Four History in the "Four History" Movement

The "Four Histories" movement rose under the special political background, which deviated from the law and track of the development of historical science from the beginning and became a derivative of political movement to some extent. However, due to the vague and rich connotation of the "Four History" movement itself, the focus of professional historians like Wu Han is undoubtedly far from the original intention of Mao Zedong to launch the "Four History" movement. Wu Han's article intentionally or unintentionally emphasized the political utilitarian purpose of "class education" and "revolutionary tradition education" in the "Four Histories" movement, but focused on excavating and expounding the positive factors of compiling the "Four Histories" for historical research. In other words, Wu Han tried to put forward normative opinions on the compilation style of "Four Histories" in order to introduce it into the real track of historical compilation.

On May 6th, Mao Zedong gave instructions on the report of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China Northeast Bureau and Henan Province on the rural socialist education movement: "It is generally feasible to educate young people with village history, family history, social history and factory history." (Mao Zedong Manuscripts Since the Founding of People's Republic of China (PRC) (Volume 10), Central Literature Publishing House, 1996 Edition, P297) 1964 On July 5, Mao Zedong said in a conversation with Mao Yuanxin: "Studying modern history without village history and family history is tantamount to farting." (Long live Mao Zedong Thought, February edition, 1967, P3 16) The advocacy of the "supreme directive" was quickly transformed into the organization and mobilization of party committees at all levels, and hundreds of millions of people actively or passively participated in it. When the national history writing movement is in full swing, historians are also considered to be duty-bound and must devote themselves to being "people's historians" Some historians write articles to explain this new direction of historical research, and many young students compete to write "four histories" as the fashion. The "Four History" movement swept across the country and was regarded as "one of the basic undertakings of the socialist revolution" and "a revolution in historical science".

Wu Han, a famous historian who was then the vice mayor of Beijing, actively responded to the compilation of the "Four Histories" and made considerable efforts to this end. In the name of "Wu Nanxing", he successively published three articles on the compilation of "Four Histories" in Frontline, an organ publication sponsored by Beijing Municipal Committee: "Talking about and Writing Village History" (Frontline No.22,1963); On compiling village history (Frontline 1964 No.2); Recall from a rare historical material (front line 65438+March 4th 0964). In the "Four History", social history, village history and family history all focus on rural grassroots. Wu Han's article focuses on the compilation of "village history", but "village history" and "family history" are inseparable, so the compilation of "family history" is naturally within its concern. The "Four History" is a "revolutionary new thing", which is in the exploration stage, and there are no ready-made examples to follow, let alone demonstration works for reference. Wu Han's article focuses on the theoretical elaboration of the compilation of "Four Histories" and puts forward some ideas on how to operate it in practice. Because of Wu Han's high political and academic status, these articles have a wide influence.

In Talking about Rural History, Wu Han first sought the origin of China's traditional scholarship for the "Four Histories". He emphasized that village history, social history, factory history and family history "belong to the category of local chronicles in form", so there is a long tradition that can be critically inherited. As for the specific way to proceed, he believes that it can be eclectic. "Taking things as the key link, choosing key events, highlighting narrative, telling people about things and taking the main thing as the second is a way of writing. Taking people as the key link, selecting key main figures, depicting their struggle process, and clarifying the party's leadership role with humanized narration are also a way of writing. " "Things to write positive, but also to write negative, in order to compare, but also easy to describe, otherwise, only write positive, not negative, the struggle will be impossible. So do people. " He further believed that the compilation of the "Four Histories" laid the foundation for the compilation of the history of China people and the country.

1964 65438+ 10 13, Wu Han hosted a forum on village history in the name of Beijing Historical Society, and discussed some issues in compiling village history, family history and social history. Deng Tuo, Secretary of the Beijing Municipal Party Committee, Liao Mosha, Minister of United Front Work of the Municipal Party Committee, historians Jian Bozan, Shao Xunzheng, Lin, writers and Luo attended the meeting. In view of the chaos in the compilation of the "Four History" movement, the meeting particularly emphasized that the "Four History" is a true story, which cannot be simplified, rashly made, and even less fictional. (Su Shuangbi: Beijing Historical Society held a forum on village history to discuss the significance, methods, contents and styles of compiling village history, Beijing Daily 3rd edition, 1964 18).

The article "Talking about the Compilation of Village History" synthesizes some opinions of the participants, and puts forward more specific ideas on the compilation of village history and family history: (1) The time limit for compiling village history and family history, "the upper limit should not be earlier than 20 years before liberation, and the lower limit should be as recent as possible", that is, "30 to 40 years before and after liberation". (2) As far as content is concerned: First of all, history and geography are not separated. "To write a good village history, we must understand the geographical environment of this village, that is, the material foundation." This part can be summarized as landscapes, products and customs. Secondly, the narrative of key events can be written in a matter-oriented way, "a bit like the chronicle of old historians"; You can also focus on people, which is "a bit like biographies or records of old historians". Third, some things are more important, but there is no need to focus on them. You can "arrange all the major events in chronological order, make a chronology and attach it to the back of the book". In this way, you can combine the general situation with close-ups and memorabilia. Some people have something to do, flesh and blood. (3) As far as genre is concerned, Wu Han thinks that it should be eclectic, covering chronology, chronology, characters and so on. Can be adopted. "Four History" is a revolutionary new thing, which should be explored in writing practice. "It is expected that there will be a new historical genre of the socialist era in the future, which is suitable for the style of our great era." In his article, Wu Han particularly emphasized that the compilation of village history must adhere to the principle of truthfulness and accuracy, and "treat people and things described realistically with a strict scientific attitude, and it is absolutely forbidden to exaggerate or conceal them. To exaggerate, this person is only seven points excellent, and you say it is excellent; Covered up, this person did something wrong, and you covered it up for him. This is not true, and things are not true. Not only can the masses not get through, but they can't learn from it. This is very bad. " Therefore, it is absolutely impossible to write the "four histories" by means of literary and artistic creation.

In the article "Recalling from a Rare Historical Material", Wu Han emphasized the significance of compiling "Four Histories" from the perspective of historical material collection. He proposed, "There are few or no written historical materials left directly by the working people themselves. However, they destroy property, sell land and houses, borrow money, lease the land of landlords and rich peasants, sell their wives, children and even themselves, and send their sons to be employees or apprentices. These sales, loans, leases and employment may be made into contracts or written documents and handed over to landlords, rich peasants, creditors, employers and owners. Many migrant workers have been tumbling in this kind of contract and written evidence all their lives, and they can't turn over; Their "endless pain in life" is mostly reflected in such contracts and written evidence. The super-economic exploitation and extremely cruel oppression of the feudal exploiting class are often realized through this tool. Therefore, such documents should be good historical materials in the village history and family history of working people. "

In the "Four History" movement, non-history professionals such as scholars, writers, journalists and editors in rural areas played a leading role, while people who had been trained in history played a supporting role to some extent. Non-history majors often write "Four Histories" in literary style, and exaggeration and distortion are inevitable, but it is more in line with the "Left" social and political atmosphere at that time, easier to meet the needs of political propaganda, and naturally more favored by publishers. At that time, the standard for publishing houses to judge the quality of "Four Histories" was firstly "whether it reflected the main line of class struggle", secondly "whether it had rich feelings of working people" and thirdly "whether the content was true" (China Youth Publishing House: some experiences in editing and publishing "Four Histories", People's Daily 1965 10. Historians will always keep the subject of "history" in their hearts. If they want to reflect the truth of history, they will inevitably meet the requirements of ideology. Xin Li's memory reflects the confusion of historians: "In Zhangye, although I came into contact with many materials about the history of poor farmers and village communities, how did these materials get into the book?" If history is to serve proletarian politics, it can only be said to be good, not bad, but what we are seeing now is poverty and backwardness. Can all the materials found in the' four clean-ups' be written truthfully? (Li Xin: The Past: Memoirs of Li Xin, Shanxi People's Publishing House, 2008 edition, 1 1 edition, P389) In addition, the "Four History" with strong literariness, vivid image and strong appeal is loved by workers and peasants with generally low knowledge level; The "four histories" in the field of historiography are considered to be too simple and not in line with the appreciation taste of the workers and peasants. Wei Junyi participated in the compilation of the History of the North Red Star-Changxindian Locomotive and Rolling Stock Factory. The first draft is rich in content and information, "some of it is like a detailed history book". As a result, some old workers "said it couldn't catch people" and "comrades of the party Committee read it and said,' I'm afraid the masses don't like it'", so they had to rewrite it to strengthen literariness. (Wei Junyi: Talking about Factory History, People's Literature No.2, 1960).